Page 22 of Old Girls Go Greek
‘I only lasted thirty seconds and then the speedboat took a sudden turn and I fell off,’ she said. ‘It was fun. But I’m not sure I want to do it again.’
‘Of course you could do that,’ Beryl said, rummaging in her handbag and pulling out one of the many leaflets she had collected from the tourist information office. ‘It’s called ringos. Looks like they do two behind the same boat. Not me, obviously, I’ll hold the bags and coats.’
‘And I will watch and cheer,’ Anita said, ‘and take photos.’
‘I’m going off the idea now, if I have to go on my own,’ I said, pulling a face.
‘Oh all right, I’ll come with you,’ Effie sighed.
Beryl frowned. ‘Are you sure that’s a good idea?’
‘Of course it is. Then I can put it on my bucket list and cross it off,’ Effie said.
‘I don’t think that’s how it works,’ Anita said doubtfully.
‘Perhaps I’ll think about it and do it another day,’ I said.
Beryl wagged a finger at me. ‘Nonsense. Now you’ve said it, and you have the chance, we have to organise it immediately. Otherwise, it would be very unlucky. And you might never get another opportunity. I went water skiing in the south of France when I was younger. You’ll love it.’
‘Will I?’ I said, my initial enthusiasm dimming slightly.
‘Only one way to find out,’ Anita said.
‘What are the others doing? Haven’t we got this afternoon as free time?’ Effie said.
I looked at my watch. ‘Good grief, it’s nearly quarter to one and the bus leaves at one o’clock. I haven’t done a thing other than have drinks, gossip, eat cake and look at the view.’
‘That sounds like a pretty good way to spend the morning to me,’ Anita said. ‘Like I said, we’re not at school. We aren’t going to get a detention for not doing our work, are we? There’s always tomorrow.’
‘Exactly,’ Beryl agreed, ‘and now we are getting a feel for the place, I’m sure it will imbue our work?—’
‘Imbue? You’re getting posh in your old age,’ Effie snorted.
‘—with more confidence, and knowledge.’
‘I have an increased knowledge of cake,’ I said, licking my teeth to check I didn’t have any fragments of walnuts stuck in my smile.
‘A valuable life skill,’ Anita said approvingly.
Beryl stood up and picked up her bag, and I looked around and wondered where Will had got to. I spotted him in the end, sitting underneath a tree with his bag, like mine, still unpacked. So he hadn’t done any painting either. Perhaps he was deep in thought, planning a way to get away from us. No, why would he be thinking that? We were perfectly nice people, and there weren’t that many of us. Surely a man of his age could cope?
‘We need to pack up, get on the bus back to the hotel and get our things. Then we can have lunch first. Meg and Effie, I suggest you put your swimming costumes on under a sundress so you don’t have to think about it and chicken out, and then we can walk down to the harbour and find a place that does ringos. This is very exciting indeed. I’ve never helped someone do something on their bucket list before.’
‘Two hours ago I didn’t have one,’ I said rather weakly.
‘Well, now you do,’ Anita said. ‘I don’t think I’ve been this excited since Rick cleaned out the gutters and found three tennis balls, a rubber snake and a TV remote.’
7
I was beginning to realise that as a foursome we were going to spend a lot of time chatting, eating and drinking, and possibly not actually painting, which was what I had expected.
Still, I was definitely enjoying myself, and as we clambered up onto the minibus to go back to the hotel, I felt really happy with life.
The others in the group wondered what we had been doing and when Dennis heard that none of us had so much as dampened a paintbrush, he spent a lot of time telling us how well he had got on and how marvellous the light had been over the bay. He even held out his sketch book to show us some of his preliminary drawings, and next to him, Jillian beamed at her most enthusiastic student.
‘Such a shame you wasted the opportunity,’ she sighed when the four of us – sitting at the back of the minibus like naughty children on a school trip – admitted to making no progress on our artistic journey. ‘After all, it’s like anything else in life; the more you do it, the better you get.’
‘That’s what my first husband used to say,’ Beryl said.
